


If Thine Enemy Be Hungry

by inscarletsilence



Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Imperius sex, Loki wasn't hugged enough as a child, M/M, Namor does not speak of his conquests, is there a word for a nemesis who you also want to bone?, namor: prince of AB-LANTIS, rooftop deep and meaningfuls: an avengers fic staple, the ladies of marvel roller derby team is legitimately terrifying, there should be a rating for 'explicit....eventually', though he perfectly understands that others oft wish to spread word of his prowess, tony's parents are deeeeeeeeead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-30
Updated: 2012-06-08
Packaged: 2017-11-06 07:44:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/416426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inscarletsilence/pseuds/inscarletsilence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, I read <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/315889">Off the Record</a> by <a href="http://goddamnhella.tumblr.com/">Hella</a>, and it broke something inside my brain, and suddenly I was captaining the good ship Loki/Tony, off into the Frostiron sun. </p><p>This fic (that I have taken to calling "the AUAU" colloquially, for reasons that should become apparent) is an example of what happens when you take one (1) lazy fic writer [that would be me], one (1) amazing <a href="http://tokidokifish.tumblr.com">enabler</a> [who is absolutely incredible and <i>totally at fault</i>],  and an unhealthy love for snarky men flirting with each other. Blend over the crippling inability to do anything but the barest minimum research, set to simmer for, oh, I don't know, around 40 days or so, and you'll find yourself with a gently steaming pile of Australian university AU.  </p><p>This batch comes complete with the accidental pairing of the two most terrifyingly competent roller derbyers (derbyists?) to ever put ball-bearings to rink, the permanently shirtless adventures of Namor the Submariner, and ALL DADDY ISSUES ALL THE TIME.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I’m the Fucking Hero of the Piece, so That Makes You My Nemesis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tokidokifish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokidokifish/gifts).



> Oh god. This whole thing got absolutely out of hand. I...I have been sitting here, trying to think of a way to justify my actions. All I can honestly say is: the blame for this rests absolutely, utterly, squarely on the shoulders of [Fish](http://tokidokifish.tumblr.com). Her [Overcoat 'verse](http://tokidokifish.tumblr.com/tagged/the-Overcoat-%27verse) infected me, and I accidentally Frostiron :o
> 
> Things to note: because I am absolutely the worst at research I just wrote what I knew, and what I know is _RIDICULOUS_. The setting here is a fictional Australian university, because while I actually did go looking for the perfect double degree of art and ancient history and scheming of the evil variety for Loki, sadly, it did not exist. Tony's robotics postgrad (mechatronics) is an actual thing that I actually looked up, and actually exists. His undergrad was a double degree in Engineering and Business, which sounds an awful lot like torture to me, but I'm sure he enjoyed himself. 
> 
> I want to thank everyone who encouraged me to continue with this madness: all the bros, and especially Fish, who patiently gave me daily encouragement and was kind enough to help me out of the stupid corners I backed myself into. The work's title is from the Bible, because I'm the kind of person who finds naming gay smut after a quote from Romans 12:20 absolutely hilarious.

It is three in the morning and Tony Stark is very definitely _not_ obsessively checking the marks for his latest class assignment. He is reading, or partying, or sleeping, or whatever it is that people normally do at three o’clock on a Sunda- wait, no, on a Monday morning. Tony Stark is not the kind of man who would spend what precious little free time he had checking the class website to see if he has once again come a close second to the mysterious ‘L.L.’ _What kind of initials are ‘L.L.’ anyway, who has the initials L.L.? They’re absurd_ , Tony thinks to himself, as he absolutely does not log in with his student ID and password.

Tony Stark has definitely not imbued the initials L.L. with a kind of galactic malevolence, as though the letters themselves were twirling a tiny moustache at him while cackling evilly. The page Tony Stark is absolutely not refreshing for the sixteenth time resolves and Tony’s eyes snap to the top of the list. Initials, followed by score. There they (hypothetically, since Tony’s not looking at them) are again, taunting him from their alliterative pedestal: ‘L.L. - 98. TS. - 96.5’.

“God fucking damn it,” Tony exhales, mashing his finger on the mouse to close the tab. He takes a quick sip out of his beer and pouts at his monitor, as if it was going to offer him condolences for coming runner-up to a nemesis he has largely invented in his own head.

Tony had been sure this time he’d top the class. He’d put in _shitloads_ of effort. Sure, he had skipped a few classes, but who needs to actually attend tutorials when you’re a genius billionaire playboy...mechanic? He’d read the assignment outline. He’d vaguely followed the instructions. And yet still the inscrutable L.L. had managed to beat him.

“This aggression will not stand, man,” he says to himself, picking up his beer and heading to bed. Sulkily he resolves to attend the next lecture. Tony drains the last of the beer, dumps the bottle on the floor beside his king-size bed and crawls into the dark blue sheets. _I’ll figure out when the lecture is, uncover who this L.L. asshole is, find out how he keeps beating me in this piece of shit architecture subject I give no shits about, and then I’ll kick his shitting ass_ , he sleepily thinks to himself. Tony falls asleep feeling buoyed by his clearly superior planning skills, and does not focus on the way “second place” carves a hole in his insides, leaving him feeling empty and white-hot with shame.

The next morning Tony is wondering whose brilliant fucking idea it was to attend a lecture at ten in the morning, as he has been wondering for the past hour and a half, after he dragged himself and his hangover out of bed. _Who do you think, genius_? Comes the answer and Tony is scanning the lecture hall from behind his sunglasses, scrutinising every face for telltale signs it belongs to the dreaded L.L. None of the people assembled around him look enough like the scheming bastard _prick_ who keeps beating Tony, as they all shuffle into their seats, fiddling with pens or pecking listlessly at hilariously outdated laptops.

Tony pushes his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose just slightly and that is when he spots him. Entering via the hall’s side door is the only person who could possibly contain enough pure, unadulterated evil to be the living embodiment of the hated L.L. initials. It takes Tony an instant to take in the guy, impeccably dressed in a pair of black bootleg slacks, a dark green short sleeved shirt and a grey vest. He has taken an extra moment to appreciate the guy’s black lace-up oxfords before looking up to his face. _Mistake! Danger! Warning, Tony Robinson, danger danger!_ screams in his head but outwardly he simply pushes his sunglasses up again, covering his eyes. The guy narrows his green eyes slightly as they turn in Tony’s direction but continues sauntering into a seat. Tony’s supposed to be the only guy in this class who gets to saunter! Who does this fucking gorgeous hipster think he is?!

Tony spends the next 60 minutes ignoring everything about the lecture in favour of attempting to burn a hole into the back of the guy’s neck, using only the power of Tony’s intense and totally justified rage. He can’t really articulate why he is so sure this guy is the same person who keeps beating him every week, he just knows that everything about him is screaming “I fucked your day, I’m going to keep fucking it, and there’s nothing you can do about it”, from the way his hair curls up at the ends at his nape, to the way his shoulder blades pull at the fabric of his clothes.

Tony is so intensely sure he has the right guy, in fact, that the lecture ends without him realising it, and he is abruptly brought out of his thoughts of _who the fuck does he think he is, nobody out-scores Tony Stark, I can’t believe I’m going to have to put in more effort for a fucking architecture class, I wonder what he’d look like without a shirt on, when’s the next assignment due, I need to beat this fucker_ by the sounds and movements of people packing up around him. Chairs scraping, papers shuffling, backpacks being filled, the lecturer ending the recording and murmuring to the small group of irritatingly engaged students who have gathered to ask questions.

Alarmed, Tony hastily packs his things into his backpack and turns back to the guy’s seat. It’s empty. _Fucking typical_ , Tony inwardly snarls, and heads outside to get more coffee.

“Back again?” the coffee cart girl is blond and wearing an ill-fitting pair of jeans, along with a plain black t-shirt and a small apron. Her face is freckled and pleasing, and Tony flashes her his third best smile.

“Yep. I’ve never been good at the whole ‘moderation’ thing.” She chuckles and hands him his coffee. He asks if she is doing anything that night, and she says she has plans, and flicks a glance behind Tony. He turns and spots the guy from the lecture, lounging in the park opposite the cart, impossibly long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle. His back is against a tree trunk and he’s reading a book. A book! Tony scowls.

So apparently class marks aren’t the only area in which L. L. scores ahead of Tony. Tony pays for the coffee and downgrades the smile to a polite twitch of the lips and heads home.

That Friday night Tony has submitted that week’s task and is absolutely, 100%, _fiercely_ sure that he will top the class this time. He refuses to affix ‘if it’s the last thing I do’ to that sentence, because what kind of last thing is ‘top architecture class assignment for week nine’? Rubbish, that’s what. Tony takes a moment to hope that the last thing he does is ‘flip switch on machine that takes my consciousness and puts it in the body of a twenty four year old figure skater immune to aging and all disease’ before taking a quick shower and searching his apartment for a decent shirt to wear out.

An hour or so later, Tony is working on a buzz and thinking about approaching at least three girls and definitely one dude, should the girls prove a bust. A few drinks later, he discovers that the first two girls have boyfriends, the third is very uninterested, and when the dude says he’s already gotten a better offer, Tony rolls his eyes but says “okay, no problem, big guy,” and catches a glimpse of dark hair and green eyes before they are gone, and the hand that isn’t clenched around a beer glass makes a fist by Tony’s side.

He goes home alone, and plods through about two thirds of a bottle of scotch before going to bed.


	2. This Could be the Start of a Beautiful Explosion/Friendship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Darcy is way too observant for her own good, and the boys re-enact that scene from Zoolander where they realise their enmity is merely mutual jealousy. Sadly, neither Billy Zane nor David Bowie are present.
> 
> We also learn how Sif and Darcy met!

For reasons Tony is not going to analyse, he begins to regularly attend the ten AM lecture, and no matter where he ends up sitting, the guy is always directly in his line of sight. A few rows in front, a couple seats either side, just close enough that Tony can track every moment of his long, slender fingers. As the semester drags on, Monday mornings become a weird ritual for Tony. Getting up before midday is always difficult, but every time he considers sleeping in, a pair of green eyes appear in his mind and his feet hit the floor before Tony has time to second guess it.

The lecture attendance must actually help, because once or twice, he actually manages to top the class. He finishes the subject second overall and Tony vows to never again take architecture, hopes that the end of the semester will signal an end to his streak of abysmal pick-up attempts. At the end of the final lecture, he takes in the guy one final time. Tony knows that by now the punch of emotion he feels when looking at him is probably 80% lust and 20% loathing, but he _also_ knows when not to throw fuel on a petrol fire, so he packs his backpack and leaves, doesn’t even bother to find out if he’d developed a weird obsession with the right person.

A week into the semester break, Tony is doing the aimless tinkering he likes to vaguely call “running diagnostics” on his robots when he gets a text from Darcy, asking him what he’s doing that night. Tony takes in his surroundings: he is playing music through his enormous flat screen, his lounge room floor entirely covered in pvc piping, disassembled robot chassis, open textbooks, scattered tools and his own body, sprawled out on his belly on the floor.

Tony had hooked up with Darcy; this incredible dark-haired sass machine; when she was in first year and he was in third year of his first degree, and they had remained close, though now only platonically. She had scored herself a long term girlfriend, who was gorgeous and at least seven feet taller than Tony, and spoke ten different languages and taught some kind of martial arts class and was in general absolutely amazing, but most importantly was utterly stupid in love with Darcy.

\-- Outgoing message: No, obviously I’m not available, can’t you tell I’m currently nude tanning in Majorca? --

\-- Incoming message: how would i be able to tell something like that, also: currently wet season in Majorca. ty for the mental image. how do you keep *it* from burning? --

\-- Outgoing message: Constant vigilance. Okay so I’m not in Majorca, you caught me. How is your Danish sword priestess? --

\-- Incoming message: i told you a billion times, T-bag, she’s Norwegian, and she’s great. you really should come, i havnt seen you in ages. also I’ll send sif after you and you know she’s been dying to try out the newest addition to her knife collection --

\-- Outgoing message: The fact that your girlfriend has a knife collection should be terrifying, Lewis. Instead it is intensely arousing? You could both examine me for tan lines, if you like. --

\-- Incoming message: maybe you’ll find someone at the party to examine them? ;) --

\-- Outgoing message: Tell the shieldmaiden of Rohan to keep the knives at home. I’ll swing by if I get a chance. --

Grinning, Tony locks his phone and tosses it aside to resume working. With a bit of luck, he’ll have Dum-E working at 200% capacity with enough time to shower before maybe _finally_ getting some tail, now that El Hipsterado wasn’t cockblocking him at every turn.

Darcy and Sif live in a seedy townhouse in the dodgy end of a very sketchy street in a really shitty neighbourhood, and when they first moved in they seemed to have a constantly changing roster of random housemates who ran the gamut from hopeless stoner to a guy Tony’s partially convinced was an axe murderer on the run from the law. For the past little while, though, there’s been three guys who six-beers-and-a-shot-Tony absolutely _adores_. One is enormous, one has spiky hair, and the other has a truly ridiculous moustache, and the three of them can put away more booze in a sitting than Tony is comfortable even looking at.

It is partially their fault, then, that Tony is currently half slumped into a sad-looking potted plant on Sif and Darcy’s terrace, but primarily the blame lies with the guy currently monopolising all of Tony’s favourite people.

“Fucken, fu-assfuck,” Tony says viciously, patting himself down looking for a lighter, a beer still clenched in one hand. There is an unlit cigarette in his mouth, and he is very definitely not sulking outside while _Loki_ and Sif take turns telling what must be humankind’s most fucking entertaining story, judging by the way their captive audience are clutching at their stomachs and howling with laughter.

A lighter is pressed into his free hand and Tony looks up to see Darcy standing over him, her lips pursed and one hand on her hip.

“What are you doing out here, you can smoke inside you know, everyone else is,” she says, not waiting for an answer. Tony just shrugs and sips his beer. He may well feel a flush of happiness that she has noticed his absence, but he’s sure as hell not going to just up and tell her what’s going on. Luckily, as so often happens with Darcy, he doesn’t really have to.

“So what’s the story with you and Loki? You’ve been sulking ever since he showed up. I didn’t realise you knew Sif’s mates?” Once Tony has got the cigarette lit, Darcy snatches it and takes a drag, sliding herself down into a crouch beside him.

“I don’t. You know that woman and her cadre of murderous brewery-drinkers terrify the hell out of me. I didn’t even know his _name_ until tonight,” Tony says. Unfortunately Darcy has always been very good at ignoring most of what Tony says, in favour of a sharp, dogged focus on the most important parts.

“But you knew _something_?” she prods.

Tony exhales and shrugs again. “Kinda. We had a thing. Architecture class. He got better marks than me-” Darcy’s face crumples into an expression resembling fondness. “-and he has been unintentionally; or possibly, with great malicious intent; cockblocking me for the past three months.” Darcy chuckles, stubbing the barely-touched cigarette out with the toe of her Dunlop Volleys.

“You know, he hasn’t stopped talking about the brilliant asshole who kept making him look bad by getting basically the same marks despite never showing up or doing any of the work, who all his recent hookups have been completely obsessed with,” she says as she stands up and holds out an arm to Tony. “I think you ought to come inside.” After a few moments, Tony brushes away her outstretched hand, heaves himself upright, and then links arms with her and heads inside.

Inside, the conversation has apparently moved on to allow Sif to tell the story of the night she and Darcy first met. It is one of Tony’s favourites, and he’s heard it many times, so he lets himself react on autopilot while he checks out the guy. Loki. L.L. Whatever.

“I’d only just moved, right, and I had no idea really, so I’m wandering down this super seedy alley way, on my own, at about, I dunno, like eleven thirty at night? And I’ve got my headphones in and I’m just, I gotta get back to the hostel because I’m really drunk and I just want to crash. So, out of nowhere these assholes jump me and are all “hand over your phone and your wallet” right?”

Tony groans along with everyone else, and watches as Loki’s eyes narrow and his lips twist into a wide grin. He can tell Loki’s feeling a brief moment of sympathy for the muggers.

“So I’m just about to take out the big one, then BOOM, one of his mates just drops, and starts twitching! And I can smell burning and I hear this crazy buzzing noise and then I see this, like, tiny chick standing behind him, I’m serious! She’s like this big!” Sif waves the hand holding a glass of something poisonous-looking vaguely in the vicinity of her shoulder level.

Tony reaches over to pat Darcy on the head and watches as her eyes flick to this, one eyebrow arched, as if to say _“Yeah, right. I know that 20% of the reason we even hooked up was because you were so overjoyed to find a girl who you were actually taller than”_. But what she _actually_ says is “good things come in little packages!” to the very loud amusement of all present.

“Yeah, little packages packing commercial stun guns!” Sif adds, laughing. Darcy nods and affects an expression that suggests she is fondly remembering a lost friend.

“So I think to myself ‘holy shit, Darce! You totally just saved a damsel in distress, you bad ass you’,” Darcy adds, thrusting her - in Tony’s expert opinion - magnificently appealing chest out and putting both hands on her hips.

Sif picks up the thread without missing a beat: “and so I say ‘wow, you saved me’, and then take a breath, right, and then I clock one of the two guys still standing,” Sif mimes a punch and Tony fervently thinks he would rather spend his life repairing blenders than go up against Sif in any kind of fight.

“So I’m standing there just thinking ‘oh my god I just tasered a dude, and then,” Darcy makes a vague hand-flapping gesture, as if to indicate the unfortunate degenerate who Sif has just laid out. “And then Sif says -”

“Saved me from getting incarcerated, for putting these shitheads in the hospital!” Sif punches the air again and even Volstagg takes a subtle half step backwards. Tony laughs and tries to pat Darcy on the head again, but she expertly bats his arm away and moves away to wrap an arm around Sif. Before he has time to realise what has happened, Tony finds himself standing next to Loki.

He’s wearing black skinny jeans and a grey tee and is sipping at a glass of red wine. Tony stares a little too long at his hand before slightly pissedly bringing his gaze up to Loki’s face. Tony tries to think of something suitably witty yet cutting to say, but he is distracted by how fucking _good_ Loki smells. Like wine and skin and something else Tony can’t identify.

“Stark,” Loki says, interrupting Tony’s train of thought. Tony doesn’t want to think too much about how hot he finds the sound of his name on Loki’s lips, but his traitorous brain is replaying the sound over and over. Instead of replying, Tony brings his beer to his lips and flashes Loki a grin from behind the mouth of the bottle.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Darcy rolling her eyes. She nudges Sif, who looks down at Darcy questioningly. Darcy nods in Tony and Loki’s direction and raises her eyebrows. Tony can tell they’re having an irritatingly communicative silent conversation. After a second or so, Sif turns to them and smiles brightly. She’s wearing jeans and a muted gold tank top over a short-sleeved red t-shirt, and her long black hair is in a high ponytail, one perfectly-sculpted eyebrow raised along with a malicious-looking smirk.

“Loki! You know Tony?” she asks, her tone deceptively innocent. Darcy flashes Tony a smug smile and winks, before darting off to round up Fandral, Hogan and Volstagg for what will inevitably turn out to be a blurry, poorly framed Instagram photo.

Loki cocks his head to one side and says “oh, not as such, no. We had a subject together last term,” with a slight smile in Tony’s direction. “He never showed up and still managed to wipe the floor with practically everyone in the class.”

Sif laughs. “Yeah, he’s like that. So you two haven’t met properly?” Tony shakes his head, not taking his eyes off Loki’s lips. The smile looks like the expression a snake would make before swallowing a mouse whole. “Well! Tony, this is Loki. We’re old friends from back -” she hesitates for a moment “back in Melbourne. Loki, this is Tony. He’s -”

“Anthony Stark. Set to take over the famous Stark Industries once he turns 25, working on something to do with robotics -” Loki waves the hand not holding his wine glass in a vague gesture, as if to indicate his opinion of robots. Tony is momentarily offended on behalf of android-kind. “I know. I read an article. It was in the student newspaper.”

“We have a student newspaper?” Tony asks, looking in Darcy’s direction. Didn’t she do something to do with media? Journalism? Tony can’t remember. Darcy rolls her eyes at him again.

“Yes, dumb-dumb. That Christine chick runs it, remember?” Tony does not remember. He shrugs.

“Something to do with artificial intelligence? With enormous ramifications for the health and aged care sector? Not to mention the lonely social invert who prefers talking to technology rather than people!” Everybody laughs and Tony scowls at Loki. “I don’t know what you were doing in an architecture class in the first place, honestly,” Loki continues, putting his free hand in the pocket of his jeans.

“What? A man’s not allowed to take an elective?” Tony throws his arms wide and smiles as people chuckle. “What are you, like, the crown prince of architecture?”

“I just don’t see why someone would waste their time in a totally unrelated subject, it seems so completely unnecessary,” Loki says, shrugging. Tony watches the bones of his neck move under his shirt and realises his eyes are at the level of Loki’s clavicles. Tony is pretty fond of clavicles, and the part of his brain not currently occupied with feeling a flaring animosity towards Loki is occupied with imagining himself sucking on them, which Tony admits does kind of put a dampener on his feelings of rage.

“I’ll tell you what’s _actually_ unnecessary,” Tony replies. “Getting full marks every week. I mean, jesus, do you not have a life or what?” Loki blows air out of his nose and Tony sees his green eyes flash. Adrenalin rushes through him and Tony thinks _fuck it_ and keeps going. “I was like, who the fuck is this L.L. dude, what the fuck is his deal?!”

“Well I suppose we can’t come from famously wealthy families, swan into the engineering department with a huge wad of daddy’s money and then sashay out with a double degree,” Loki says, his smile in no way friendly. Tony has the feeling that if he had the power to do so, Loki would be pulling Tony’s teeth out and feeding them to him.

Tony sucks in a breath and closes his eyes, physically restraining himself from reaching out and touching Loki. He’s legitimately not sure what would happen if he did, because there is currently two warring tribes inside his brain. One wants to drag a freezing hand up inside Loki’s shirt, scraping a finger wet with the condensation from his beer bottle over his belly to splay out over his chest. The other wants...other things that sound less fun. Maybe if he’d one or two fewer beers, he wouldn’t have replied with “I’m not really used to people beating me, you know.”

Loki seems visibly taken aback at Tony’s abrupt change in tone, but only for a moment. “Well I’m not used to having to share the top tier, especially not with polymaths who spend half the semester MIA.”

“M’ not a polymath,” Tony says. “My areas of expertise are, like, very -” Tony makes a series of gestures with his free hand indicating a small, contained space, “- narrow. Totally narrow. It’s like, engines and robots and that’s it. That’s why I had to take an architecture elective. Program adviser said my course load wasn’t _broad_ enough.” He has no idea why he’s telling Loki this, though it might have something to do with the way Loki tilts his head and _looks_ at Tony, a different smile spreading across his face. This one is less viperish and more...content.

“I hated that you beat me those couple of times,” he says, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial hum that runs right through Tony and does very chaotic things to the balance of power of the warring tribes in his brain.

“Are you fucking kidding me? I had to work my ass off just to beat you, and even then I only managed it twice! I attended _morning lectures_ because of you!” Tony exclaims.

Loki chuckles. “Oh, really? I managed to get the famous Anthony Stark out of bed before midday? I’m flattered, truly.”

“I’ve worked less for _so_ much more, is all I’m sayin’,” Tony replies, and realises that at some point everyone else at the party has drifted off, and the two of them are standing on their own, their bodies quite close.

Tony rubs a knuckle across his bottom lip. “I’m gonna get another beer. You want?” Loki shakes his head and indicates his wine glass. Tony scoffs, and starts heading to the fridge, reasonably sure that Loki will follow. “Right. Wine snob. Shoulda known.” He hears a deep, rough chuckle behind him and reaches for another beer. “Hey, before Darce manhandled me in here I was about to have a cigarette. You wanna join me?” Loki just nods.

They spend the rest of the evening together in Sif and Darcy’s courtyard, smoking and drinking, Tony sitting on a deck chair with his feet up on the sagging wooden fence, Loki sprawled out in an ancient sunbed, one long leg extended out with the other bent at the knee. Tony is struck by how easy it is to talk to Loki, how effortlessly he seems to follow Tony’s erratic thought patterns. Even though Loki’s perspective on things was often totally alien to Tony, he is clearly one of the most intelligent people Tony’s ever encountered. He’s quick and savage and now that Tony doesn’t feel a constant need to upstage him, he’s finding Loki enormously entertaining.

As the evening winds down, they make their way back inside, where Sif and Darcy and a few stragglers are draped across couches and on the floor. Tony is tempted to ask Loki to share a cab home, but he finds the man asleep on Sif’s shoulder, and she is humming softly to him, her fingers tangled in his dark hair. His face is soft and expressionless, and he’s honestly surprised to see Sif looking what he is, in the privacy of his own head, going to call ‘maternal’. So instead, Tony kisses Sif on the top of her head, says “bye-bye, mama bird”, waves to Darcy, and catches a taxi home alone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagined Newtown when I wrote Darcy and Sif's seedy townhouse, and I don't know what that says about me. Or about Newtown. Also: I'm sorry I made everyone a smoker, it just moves things along really well :P 
> 
> (Will I ever stop making lotr references? UNLIKELY)


	3. I’m So Glad You’re Too Drunk to Remember Any of This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WE ARE PROUD TO PRESENT 'FEELINGS ON THE ROOF: THE MARVEL STORY'. 
> 
> Be sure to check out the fanart that inspired this chapter!

From that night on, Tony sees a lot more of Loki, some of which is on purpose. They get coffee before class, or meet up in the library to pretend to study for a couple of hours, grab a quick drink at the campus bar. They often find themselves at the same parties, which Tony suspects is Darcy’s doing. Each time it is easier to talk to Loki, joke with him, fling a casual arm around the man’s slender shoulders and feel his laughter hot in Tony’s ear. Navigating a friendship has always been strange and alien to him, but thankfully Loki either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. He returns Tony’s bizarre brand of affection with a quiet smile and barbs that are far too fond to be genuine. Eventually Tony worries himself into a corner, convinced that he will soon drive Loki away, if he hasn’t already, and so he does what any sensible socially-retarded genius would do: he drunk dials him at an absurd hour on a weeknight.

Tony takes a swig of scotch from the bottle as he listens to his phone dialing, hears the call connect and Loki scramble to pick it up.

“Anthony? Are you alright?”

Suddenly Tony has no idea why he has called Loki in the middle of the night. He knows he needs to say something but he can’t make his body cooperate and even if he managed to he has absolutely no words in his head, they have all been eaten by whatever it is that is making his stomach feel as though he’s plummeting out of the sky like a whale who has recently noticed a whizzing sensation and has decided to name it ‘wind’.

Eventually, after a million years of screaming at his vocal chords to hurry up and get their ass in the game, Tony manages to croak out “did I wake you?”, and for some reason the irritated huff he hears in response calms him.

“It’s, -” a pause, and Tony can hear Loki moving around in his sheets, “half one in the morning, Anthony. Of course you woke me. I have class tomorrow.” His voice is thick with sleep but Tony imagines those green eyes flashing in a darkened room as he sits up, rapidly gaining awareness.

“Sorry,” Tony whispers.

“Are you okay?” Loki asks again.

Tony shakes his head, says nothing. Loki seems to hear it. Tony hears a muffled noise and then the sound of Loki moving around his apartment, the phone jammed between his shoulder and his cheek. “Where the fuck are my pa-, Anthony, I’m heading over, okay? I’m coming over, I won’t be long. You hear me?” Tony nods and again Loki apparently understands, because he says goodbye and hangs up the phone.

It takes Loki a little under half an hour to arrive at Tony’s place, by which time Tony has attempted to become something even remotely resembling a competent human adult. It has had...mixed results. He is on his balcony, wearing jeans and a red v-neck t-shirt, his bare feet up on the guardrail, a bottle of water in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Tony watches as a car pulls up and feels his phone vibrate in his pocket.

“I’m out the front,” Loki says.

“I know, I can see you,” Tony answers. “Come on up, I’m the top floor, and it’s open.” He watches as Loki’s small figure heads inside the building, and listens for the elevator doors. Tony doesn’t hear Loki approaching but he isn’t surprised when he slides open the balcony door and comes to rest by Tony’s feet.

Tony has no idea how to make up for the fact that he just called a relative stranger in the middle of the night, forcing them out of bed and into their car to come check up on him, isn’t sure if anything he could say would even explain his actions, so he doesn’t try. He just drops his feet to the ground, stands up and wraps one of Loki’s arms around his own waist.

“I’m so incredibly, _monumentally_ fucked up, you know?” he says, finally. Loki snorts. Again, Tony is only encouraged by the noise. “No, I mean it. I have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t even know why I called you. I’m so-”

“Don’t say you’re sorry. I came, didn’t I?”

“Yeah. You did,” Tony says, looking at him. They are silent for some time, before Tony extinguishes his cigarette on the balcony ledge. Loki doesn’t remove his arm from around Tony, so Tony wraps his arm around him and rests his head on Loki’s shoulder. His silence isn’t an expectant one, and Tony wonders if he would actually just stand on Tony’s balcony all night in silence, just because Tony asked him to.

“My parents died. It’s the anniversary,” Tony says, suddenly. He feels Loki nod.

“I know.”

“You know?”

“I stalked you. Last term? I read a lot about you, and your parents, and your company.”

“Not mine yet.”

“I know. Some corporate dickery happened and now you only get it once you turn 25. You were very unimpressed.”

Tony almost laughs, remembering the press coverage of the Stark Industries succession scandal: surly photographs of him appeared on the front page of business sections all over the country. “There’s no way I was ready to run a multinational company at 19. Fuck, I’m not ready now. But everyone’s counting on me, and I’m never going to live up to my Dad. I just, I don’t know what I’m _doing_.” Tony says it again, closing his eyes and leaning closer into Loki.

“If it’s disappointed-father-figure-angst time, I guess I’ve come to the right place,” Loki mumbles into Tony’s hair.

“Ha,” Tony snorts. “You’re kidding me, right? Mister “top of the class” Laufeyson? Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. My father couldn’t give a shit about my marks, not even if he tried. You should have seen his face when I told him I was leaving to do Arts. It almost makes me wish I’d gone home to see his face when I told him what I was going to do for postgrad,” Loki affects a wistful sigh. “Unfortunately I had to settle for an apoplectic email, followed by several months of resentful silence.”

Tony makes a disbelieving noise, leaning into the slim weight of Loki’s side. Loki seems to notice that his talking is having a visible calming effect on Tony, so he continues. “And _then_ I started to get the passive aggressive ‘here’s what our _successful_ son has been up to’ email updates.”

Tony disentangles himself and looks up into Loki’s face, which he thinks looks carefully neutral. All he can do is repeat “are you _serious_?”. Loki just nods. “That’s fucked,” Tony states decisively. “You’re amazing. I don’t know what this brother of yours is like but your folks are dickheads if they think you’re anything less than totally brilliant, and I wish you were as drunk as I am right now so you won’t remember I ever said that.”

They are so close Tony feels Loki’s chuckle reverberate through him, and it leaves him feeling warm and inexplicably pleased. “How was I supposed to get drunk? You never even offered me any booze. You’re a very rude host, Anthony Stark.”

“Oh no. We may be emotionally stunted war mongerers but the Starks do not shirk our hostly duties!” Tony heads towards the door, beckoning for Loki to follow. “What can I get you, Mister Laufeyson?” Loki grins and follows Tony inside.

“Since I am _obviously_ not making it to class tomorrow, I’ll have a vodka neat, thank you very kindly, Mister Stark.”

Some time later, Tony is lying on a sunbed on his wraparound balcony, his hands under his head, looking out into a skyline of brightly lit buildings and the occasional star, his legs either side of an entirely intoxicated Loki, who is lying with his back to Tony’s chest, gently rising and falling along with Tony’s breathing. He is a pleasant weight that helps to keep the empty feeling in Tony’s chest at bay, and through a combination of irresponsibly strong drinks and the fact that Tony has basically stuck to water since Loki arrived, they are at about the same level of drunkenness, which is presumably why Loki slurs “I’m sorry your parents died” into Tony’s collarbone.

“I’m sorry your parents are dickheads,” Tony replies.

“Not my parents,” Loki says.

“What?”

“My parents. They’re not -, I’m adopted.”

Tony is quiet for a moment before he asks “you’re adopted, and the allegedly successful son, he isn’t?”

Loki nods.

“Well, I don’t know this brother of yours, but I know you. And you’re awesome. And I am very glad you’re drunk right now, because just in case you haven’t been paying attention, that’s the second time I have complimented you without provocation.”

“I’m not drunk enough to forget you said that. And I always pay attention to you, Anthony.” Tony stays silent because he is not sure how to respond to that. He is sure Loki felt the way his breath hitched but then again, maybe not, since Loki keeps talking. “You’d probably like Thor. He’s-” Loki pauses here, and Tony holds his breath. “Impressive, I guess, is the word. He’s everything Dad ever wanted, probably because he actually took the time to teach Thor stuff. He didn’t really know what to do with me. I was this weedy little shit who preferred books or comics or video games instead of football or cricket or whatever. We had fuck all in common, and he obviously just thought it was too much effort.”

Tony snakes his hands around Loki’s middle and just holds on to him. Loki continues. “And why would he bother? Thor’s everything a guy like my Dad could want: popular, sporty, all charismatic and shit. He was like the king of our high school when we were growing up. I was the nerd who got flushed and stuffed into lockers, although not literally, since we had those tiny little mailbox-size lockers, but you get my point. Thor’s friends were usually the ones doing the flushing and the...stuffing.”

Loki is quiet for a while and Tony isn’t sure what to say. He’s no stranger to bullying, but had learned that people just tended to think he was weak and a complainer, so he never talked about it. Loki, though, Loki wouldn’t think that, would he? He isn’t sure how he know this, but he does. So he says “when I was seven, my folks sent me to boarding school. I was the only genius-level repeat offender in the whole joint. Did not win me a lot of friends, let me tell you. I didn’t even get the chance to graduate before they died. I was so sure that once I came home, things would be better, but they just got so, so much worse.”

“My parents didn’t come to my graduation. Thor was playing some imbecilic game for his uni interstate, so I graduated alone. I’d already applied for and accepted a place at the farthest university I could find, but for the next few weeks, Thor kept trying to make like, awkward apologies at me. I don’t know what triggered it, maybe he felt guilty that our parents went to watch him play sport rather than see me graduate. Maybe his first year of uni had matured him. Maybe he was high. I don’t know. He was all ‘oh, Loki, I’m sorry I let my friends beat the shit out of you on a daily basis for six years, while I laughed along and never lifted a finger to stop them, I hope you can forgive me and we can be best friends forever,” Loki says, the words punching out of him and his lithe body tensing along Tony’s torso.

“What’d you say?” Tony asks.

“What could I say? ‘ _Sure, no problems bro, these things happen_ ’? No. I ignored him and he quickly gave up. We haven’t spoken in over two years. The closest we get to communicating is through Sif.”

“Did she know you growing up?”

“Yes. She was...sort of my protector. She got picked on a lot too, strangely enough, kind of for the exact opposite reasons. She and Thor were...close, I suppose. But she never forgave him for how he let me be treated.”

“You were lucky to have her,” Tony says gently.

“Oh, yes. But you can imagine how the majority of my peers reacted to ‘a girl’ sticking up for me.” Tony can tell by the tone of Loki’s voice that he is pulling a face. “Fucking swine,” Loki spits.

“Did you just call the kids in your year ‘swine’? What are you, a regency lord?” Ton pokes Loki in the side and takes an inordinate amount of pleasure out of how Loki writhes around on top of him. When Loki settles back down onto Tony again, he places his arms back around him. “Were you happier once you moved away?”

“Yes. And no. I was...lonely. But it was amazing to be away from my family, to start over where no one knew me. I miss them sometimes.”

“You can always go back, though. You never miss something the way you miss it once it’s gone forever,” Tony says, softly.

At this, Loki twists his upper body to look Tony in the eye. “Do you usually spend the anniversary alone?”

“Yeah. Never really had anyone about before.”

“Well,” Loki says, resettling himself in Tony’s lap. “you won’t have to spend it alone anymore.”

Tony just smiles, and feels something very much but not at all like pain swell in his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I researched very high end apartments for this chapter, and it made me feel very depressed for a day or so. I don't recommend it! Unless you're the sort of person who actually _enjoys_ looking at overpriced homes you'll never be able to afford. In which case...have at it, I guess?
> 
> If, like me, you are sad that you don't have the wealth of Tony Stark, gaze ye upon these SLEEPY SEMI-PLATONIC CLOTHES-SHARING NO-BOUNDARIES BOYS:
> 
> drawn by [Fish](http://tokidokifish.tumblr.com/) and then shamelessly stolen by me.


	4. Vanguards do not hold position

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Loki do not do "traditional" friendship.

“Shhhhhhhh Anth- _Anthony_. Shut the fuck up, if you wake my flatmate I will fucking _kill_ you,” Loki whisper-shouts into Tony’s ear, one long finger stretched across Tony’s lips. It smells like cigarettes and scotch and skin and Tony’s drunk brain wants to lick it for a brief moment before it catches up with what Loki has just said. And by then, the finger is gone anyway.

“Wait, flatmate? They hot?” Tony asks, following Loki’s slightly blurry figure up the narrow concrete stairs. No wonder they usually drink closer to Tony’s place, Tony thinks. Loki’s flat is up way too many fucking stairs to navigate while drunk.

“It doesn’t matter, he’s taken, so don’t even think about it,” Loki replies, palming the back pocket of his jeans. He finds keys and has the door unlocked after a few tries, and he pushes Tony inside with another “Shh!” before closing it behind them.

“Aw, then why am I even here? I could just get a cab home! Although I already walked up all those stairs, fuck man, why do you live up so many stair-mmf!” Now Tony has Loki’s whole hand over his mouth, and he fuzzily tries to bat it away.

Loki squeezes Tony’s face gently before removing his hand, and Tony tries to make out the inside of the flat. He’s standing in some kind of loungeroom, with two identical green couches and a beanbag in front of an old CRT television, propped up on what appears to be an ancient wooden bedside table. There’s a small bookcase next to the TV, full of what Tony can tell are video games, though he can’t tell what system they’re for. Loki points to a narrow white door almost immediately beside the front door and says “toilet’s in there,” before dumping his messenger bag on one of the couches and heading into a kitchenette. Tony hears the sink running and goes to pee.

Once he’s done he slumps down onto one of the couches and Loki sits next to him, their legs pressed up together. “It’s changeover,” Loki whispers, while looking at his phone to check the time. “You’ll never get a taxi. Both these fake leather monstrosities are futons, so you can crash. Or there’s my bed, but you have to promise to keep your goddamned mouth shut, because if you wake Clint I will be in so much trouble.”

“Wait, you two share a bedroom?” Tony asks, attempting to keep his voice low, but only managing a slightly squeakier version of his regular volume. Loki glares at him.

“Yes, this is a two room flat. We can’t all live in penthouses in empty, ocean-facing highrises. Make your mind up, couch or bed, and here, have some water.” Loki passes Tony a bottle of water before heading through a door to what Tony now assumes is the only other room, stripping out of his shirt. Tony drains the water and follows him. Crammed in one corner there is a desk and a bed, on which Tony spies a sleeping figure he assumes is Clint. The other corner features an almost mirror setup, with a desk and a bed, on which Loki is sitting, leaning down to unlace his shoes. Tony toes his own off and crawls over Loki to take the side closest to the wall. Loki wordlessly strips out of his trousers and climbs in after him.

When Tony wakes up later that morning, he is wrapped around a warm and pliant Loki-shaped person, and he can hear gunfire coming from the television in the next room. Tony is on his back and has one arm around Loki, whose face is pressed up against Tony’s shoulder. Tony looks over the top of Loki and sees that Clint’s bed is empty, thinking he would very much like to go back to sleep, but his head hurts enough that he knows that’s not going to happen. He gently shakes Loki by the shoulder and says “hey, wake up,” before Loki’s eyelids drag open.

“Mlnuh,” Loki replies, jamming them closed again, and snuggling closer into Tony.

“I gotta get some water, lemme out,” Tony says, his lips stretching into a smile as he watches a frown play over Loki’s face. Loki doesn’t respond so eventually Tony extricates his arm and straddles him momentarily before clambering off the bed. He shuffles his way into the other room and is confronted by the sight of a shirtless guy with a slightly spikey crop of sandy brown hair, sitting on the couch, mashing a wireless controller and smoking a joint.

“Uh, hey?” Tony says, standing in the doorway.

“Sup. I’m Clint,” says Clint.

“Tony,” says Tony. “M’gonna get some water.” Tony picks his way across the loungeroom, making sure to obscure the television for as brief a moment as possible. He watches Clint pull of a series of impressive kills before filling a water bottle and plonking himself down next to him.

“You’re pretty good with that sniper rifle, bro,” Tony says.

“Ha, yeah,” Clint answers. “You want some of this?” he indicates the joint.

“Oh, god, no. No, I feel like shit as it is, and that will only make it worse. Thanks, though.”

“No worries. Tell Loki when he wakes up that some dude called for him while you guys were out last night, didn’t leave a name.”

“Okey dokey. You got a Geth Prime at 11 o’clock,” Tony says, pointing at the screen.

“On it!” Clint answers, sniping the giant synthetic. Tony heads back to bed.

After another couple of hours, he wakes up again wrapped around Loki, this time with his face jammed into the other man’s shoulder blade. For a moment he just inhales deeply and enjoys the pleasurable sensation of being pressed up against another person, before that other person starts to wriggle around within the circle of Tony’s arms to face him.

“Well, that settles it,” Loki says, making no move to put any extra space between them. “You are a truly appalling lover. For your crimes of gross negligence and shocking blanket-hogging, you are sentenced to one count of buying me breakfast.”

Tony pays and Loki spends the entire time stealing food from Tony’s plate. They are wandering back to Loki’s flat, sipping at takeaway coffee, when Tony suddenly realises “hey! That’s my shirt! You’re wearing one of my favourite shirts! I lost that like three weeks ago!”

“You didn’t lose it, Anthony. It simply came to be in my possession instead of yours,” Loki replies, casually smoothing his empty hand over the shirt.

“It’s not the one fucking ring, Gollum. It’s my favourite shirt!”

“Technically, in this metaphor, _you’re_ the one who is Gollum, Anthony. And you can relax, you’ll get it back.”

Tony grins. So far this morning, Loki has sleepily kneed him in the balls twice, eaten more than half of Tony’s breakfast off Tony’s plate, not offered to pay for his own coffee, and worn Tony’s stolen clothing. Tony vaguely thinks this is not exactly the kind of behaviour one would expect from a best friend, but Loki is sure as shit the closest thing Tony has to one. But Tony also knows that he’s the only person Loki feels comfortable around, and that makes him feel a fierce, stabbing pride, right in his chest, so strongly he almost can’t stand it.

He says “nah. It looks better on you, anyway,” and bumps his shoulder against Loki’s, laughing at the spluttering noises Loki makes when he spills coffee all down the front of the shirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep. Clint's playing Mass Effect 3 multiplayer. The chapter title mentions Vanguards (my class of choice, obv) but they do not make very good snipers. I based Loki and Clint's flat off the one I lived in when I first moved to Sydney, and I am not even doing its shittiness justice. There were so many stairs, and at the top of those stairs? MORE STAIRS. The toilet was right by the front door and even featured its own fake front door, just in case you ever wanted to take a shit with the whole world watching on.
> 
> I know this chapter is short, but to make up for that please allow me to show your eyeballs the visual feast that is SLEEPY SEMI-PLATONIC CLOTHES-SHARING NO-BOUNDARIES BOYS:
> 
> which [Fish](http://tokidokifish.tumblr.com/) drew and then I shamelessly reappropriated :P


	5. Am I Actually Looking at What Passes for Coffee in this Shithole?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Sub Mariner appears! Also: roller derby.

Loki spends the next few months wearing Tony’s clothes, spending Tony’s money, “borrowing” Tony’s things, eating Tony’s food, and generally being the worst friend ever. But Tony likes that Loki doesn’t feel ashamed or intimidated by Tony’s wealth, and after what Tony calls ‘the balcony incident’, they have even begun to tell each other more about their pasts, though neither would admit it sober.

Tony has told Loki more in the last year than any of the number of professional therapists, counsellors, psychologists or other so-called ‘experts’ in the years since his parents’ deaths.

Eventually he realises that Loki’s flat is closer to Tony’s lab than Tony’s apartment, so when he is not spending nineteen hour days on campus crawling up the asshole of his own coding, he’s at Loki’s house, contemplating eating instant coffee grounds out of the jar with a soup spoon. That is, at least, until he actually claps eyes on the coffee in Loki’s kitchenette.

“No. No no no no nononono no. No. I refuse. You can’t make me. No!”

“Don’t be such a baby, Anthony! It’s still coffee, for fuck’s sake,” Loki replies.

“It’s not coffee, it’s ground up grains of pure human sadness, masquerading as coffee, and I’m not going to drink it.”

“No one’s going to make you to drink it, you mental patient,” Loki says, snatching the jar out of Tony’s hands. He sets out two mugs and Tony is about to point out that clearly, Loki _is_ trying to make Tony drink it, but at that moment he hears shuffling and movement behind him. He turns to see a man wearing only a pair of green boxer briefs emerge from Loki’s bedroom. _Wait, what?_ Tony’s brain says.

Tony’d knocked on the door at around eight in the morning, after spending all night in the lab, and Loki had let him in, rolling his eyes at the manic expression on Tony’s face, his slightly puffy eyes and the fact that Tony made grabby hands in the vague direction of the kitchen before he even asked to come inside. Tony had been very focused on getting to the closest source of caffeine but was beginning to notice things other than the heaviness of his eyelids and the bone deep ache that came after attempting to work for over a whole day with no sleep. He was beginning to notice things like: Loki isn’t wearing a shirt. A man who is not Loki or Clint has just emerged from Loki and Clint’s bedroom. Loki has the slightly fluffy-on-one-side hairstyle reminiscent of a night spent in a bed not doing much sleeping. Loki is making coffee for aforementioned man.

Aforementioned man scratches idly at his bare stomach while giving Tony a lazy once-over. Tony mutely takes in the guy’s enormously defined abdomen, dark, sculpted eyebrows, and short-cropped dark hair. His expression indicates that he is, at most, nonplussed about Tony’s unannounced presence in Loki’s flat. Loki hands the guy a coffee mug and sips at his own, before waving a hand in Tony’s general direction.

“Tony, Namor. Namor, Tony.”

Namor blinks slowly and nods at Tony. Tony decides he has just remembered a very pressing engagement and sadly has to be _somewhere else_ right now, so he coughs and makes vague rumblings about finding proper coffee and getting back to work and nice to meet you and see you later, and before he knows it he is outside Loki’s building, eyebrows raised and mouth slightly agape.

 _Wait, what?_ His brain asks again. Okay. So. Tony has just walked in on Loki and what looks like an incredibly athletic gentleman named _Namor_ who presumably have just taken a quick break in an olympic marathon of fucking. Tony isn’t sure why the thought makes his hands clench into fists, a scowl replacing his previously blank expression. He goes home instead of returning to the lab, and tries to ignore the tightening sensation he feels at the bottom of his gut.

Things are... _difficult_ for Tony for the next few weeks. He finds himself avoiding Loki, because hanging out with Loki apparently now comes with a side order of the arched eyebrows and alarmingly frequent shirtlessness that make up Namor.

“That’s what they don’t tell you about the acquisition of friends, Dum-E,” Tony says out loud one night while tinkering in his workshop. “First off you think ‘bah, fine, what do I even need them for anyway, I much prefer my own company anyway!’ And then they’re all like ‘aha! But actually no! Let’s hang out all the time! And we’ll smoke your fags and hit you up for lifts everywhere!’ And then you get all...all used to them being around, and then all of a sudden they’re not around anymore, and there are toned pasty-ass motherfuckers hanging out with them instead. And then you find yourself at home alone on a Thursday night, drunk and talking to your mechanical creations, like some kind of steampunk Dr Frankenstein.” Tony takes a sip of scotch before waving his hands over Dum-E and bellowing “NOW LIVE!”

Dum-E, being a series of pneumatic artificial muscles, motors and actuators, does not respond. Tony is only mildly disappointed. He is startled a few moments later by the theme song to The L Word blaring out of his pocket from his phone.

“Darcy! Hey,” he says, answering the call.

“Actually it’s Sif. How’s life, Tony?”

Tony swallows nervously before answering “eh, no complaints, what’s up?”

“Darcy has been telling me all week how excited she is to see you tonight,” Sif says, and Tony can practically feel her cool, composed stare over the phone.

“Tonight? What’s tonight?”

“I thought that might be your reaction,” Sif sighs. “Tonight is our derby team’s semi-final? You apparently promised you’d come.”

“Oh! Roller derby thing! Yes, yeah, I remember. No, totally, I’ll be there! I wouldn’t miss it for anything, I swear,” Tony enthuses, pressing his phone between his cheek and his shoulder and smacking at his tablet feverishly, trying to find the email Darcy had sent him about it.

“Superb. I’ll text you the details now, so you can stop digging through your email. See you later,” the call disconnects and Tony lets his phone drop into his hand. Dum-E rotates and opens its pincers at him, questioningly.

“Don’t judge me, she’s terrifying! You’d fear her too, if I’d given you the capacity to feel fear,” Tony says swatting the pincer arm away from his face. “Now hold still, your end effector needs some work, or maybe I’ll just replace it entirely, I could get you some muscle wire, eh? Would you like that? Run electricity through you?” Dum-E recoils at that, and Tony laughs. “Just kidding, little guy. Come back, it’s okay, c’mon, I was pathetically laying out all my social problems to a robot. Maybe you should be doctor Dum-E, hmm?”

Dum-E whirls in response to Tony’s renewed attention, and Tony says “okay little guy, keep still because I need to finish this before I have to get ready and go watch your aunt Darcy beat the shit out of grown women while wearing a slutty nurse outfit. One hour, and then I have to...” and Tony was lost in the pleasant rhythm of working on machines that made sense, which is why two and a half hours later he screamed “FUCK!” and grabbed his keys and a red hoodie.

Tony’s hopes of skanky outfits had definitely been met: he first recognised the outline of Darcy from behind and rushed over, grateful that he hadn’t missed anything. She is indeed wearing what appears to be a sexy nurse outfit, covered in grisly splashes of red, along with a series of wrist, elbow and knee pads. Tony takes a moment to deeply regret not attending the jams more frequently, before she’s hugging him and calling Sif over. Sif is wearing a red singlet and matching leggings with a pleated white skirt over the top, almost like armor. Her elbow-length hair is in two long, sleek plaits, and she’s got some kind of gold headband over the top which ends in three deadly points on either side of her face.

“Aren’t you supposed to wear helmets?” Tony asks, indicating Sif’s headband and the white nurse’s cap Darcy has pinned between her two high ponytails.

“Yeah, but we can wear the hats when we’re not skating,” Darcy laughs, nodding. “To intimidate the opposition.”

“Oh yeah, Darce, you’re very intimidating right now. Intimidating is absolutely the adjective I would use to describe,” Tony waves a hand from shoulder-to-knee height and back again, “ _this_.”

Sif shoulders Tony good-naturedly and says “We’re on in like ten minutes, try and find a good seat!” before she’s disappearing into the crowd. Darcy trails after her, giving Tony a quick wave. He blows her a kiss and buys a hot dog, before settling into the stands.

After almost an hour of thoroughly enjoyable girl-on-girl violence, Tony notices that the man sitting beside him is in fact Clint, Loki’s roommate. He’s wearing a purple t-shirt and black jeans with a pair of Volleys with pink details, and he wordlessly hands Tony a bag of Maltesers. Tony takes a handful and sucks meditatively on the chocolate. Eventually, Clint pipes up.

“Surprised you didn’t come with Loki,” he says, eyes on the rink.

“What?” Tony asks, articulately. “Wait, is he here?” he cranes his neck to look around the stands. “Did he come with _Namor_?” Clint shrugs.

“Don’t know that that’s still a thing,” he says, eventually.

“Oh,” Tony says, going very still. The past few weeks suddenly resolve into sharp focus, and he recognises the swell of excitement and nerves he feels at the news.

At this, a small smile spreads across Clint’s face, and he pats Tony on the shoulder, in what would be considered an affectionate gesture if it didn’t make Tony feel like he’ll need to ice it later. Wincing, he shoves the handful of chocolates left in his hand into his mouth all at once and then manages to splutter “I, uh, I gotta go,” before fleeing.

Clint just chuckles and turns his attention back to the rink.

Tony isn’t sure where he’s going, or what his plan of attack should be. But he has a hypothesis. Namely: he has, at some point in the past few months, developed _feelings_ for Loki. He needs to know if Loki has similar feelings. Proposed course of action: ???

 _Come on, Tony, you can do this_. He’s sitting in the carpark, his hands on the wheel of his car, engine turned off, trying to focus through the loud ringing in his ears. Suddenly, he realises he’s basically piked on Sif and Darcy, so he pulls out his phone and taps out a quick text to her.

\-- Outgoing message: Sorry I had to bail: it’s an emergency. --

And before he has a chance to explain that it’s more of a “I’ve just had a sudden and painful realisation involving feelings of attachment and jealousy” emergency rather than “help help, I have fallen to the bottom of this well and am now bleeding from all my orifices” emergency, a response comes.

\-- Incoming message: sif totes owes me $10 --

Tony is typing a reply to the effect of WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, WOMAN when he gets another message. This time it’s not from Darcy.

\-- Incoming message: Anthony? Where’d you go? --

\-- Outgoing message: Nowhere. I’m in the carpark. --

\-- Incoming message: What are you doing in the carpark? --

\-- Outgoing message: Having a tiny bit of a very mild identity crisis. nbd. --

\-- Incoming message: Why are you having it in the carpark? --

\-- Outgoing message: Because I don’t want to have it somewhere where you might see it. --

As soon as he hits ‘send’ Tony violently wishes his phone came with an ‘undo’ function. As if in defiance of his wishes the progress bar just moves merrily all the way along and his phone cheerfully emits the ‘sent message’ noise that Tony now feels was designed specifically to gloat at his suffering. He holds his breath but no reply comes. Tony slumps forward and rests his head on the steering wheel, wondering how far he can get on his tank’s current petrol level, and how far to Queensland he’d be before he started to feel less like he wanted the earth to swallow him up forever.

“I’d probably have to get out at Cairns and swim to Papua New Guinea,” he mumbles.

“I hear it’s lovely there this time of year,” comes a familiar voice. Startled, Tony realises his window is down, and there’s Loki, bent over slightly to lean on the car door, a tiny smile tugging at the edge of his mouth. “Do you want to unlock the other side and explain to me why you’re considering flinging yourself into the Coral Sea?”

“No,” Tony says, putting his head back between his hands. Loki reaches inside and pulls the switch on Tony’s door up, unlocking the whole car, reappearing momentarily in the rear view mirror before climbing into the passenger seat.

“That’s fine. Sif and Darcy’s team won, by the way,” Loki says, settling his hands in his lap. Tony can only see his lap and his legs out of the corner of his eye, but he knows that Loki is looking at him with that same small smile. He makes a vague noise that seems to mean something like, ‘oh, that’s nice’ but continues to not look up.

After a moment Loki pulls his legs up until his feet are on the seat, wrapping his arms around his shins. “You have to tell me if you want me to go away, you know. I’m not good at picking these things up on my own,” he says, after a while.

“Jesus fuck!” Tony barks, lifting his head finally. “I don’t want you to go away, I want -” _I want the way I feel about you to go away_ , he finishes inside his head. “I, - I actually want the exact opposite of that, which is something I’ve only just figured out, because I am not good at picking these things up on my own,” he says, flapping a hand between the two of them.

After a while, Loki softly says “Clint told me he thought we were together the first time he met you. I said you’d never expressed any interest in things going that way, so I was working on moving on.”

“Moving on?! To the guy who owns zero shirts and wears custom Converses with fucking _wings_ on them!?” Tony demands.

“To the guy who very explicitly made it known he wanted me!” Loki replies, throwing his hands up and turning away from Tony to look out the window. “After a while I figured you weren’t interested, so, so I found someone who was.”

“Darcy and Sif were betting on us,” Tony says, because he isn’t quite ready to process that yet.

“What do you mean, betting on us?” Loki asks, his focus turning back to Tony.

“I mean I told her I was out here having a panic attack in the carpark and she said Sif owes her ten bucks. I think that woman can read minds.”

“She can’t read minds, she just talks to her girlfriend. Sif’s had to listen to me pathetically whine some variation of the phrase ‘but why doesn’t he liiiiike me’ every week for the past six months,” Loki says, and then his eyes widen as if he’s just realised what he said. “I mean, sort of.”

“You mean. Sort of,” Tony repeats in a low voice, leaning slightly closer to Loki. Loki exhales loudly, lowering his legs back onto the floor of the car, turning to look at Tony, sliding his tongue over his bottom lip. Tony very much wants to kiss him, pleasantly aware of the fact that that seems to be on the table now, because his brain has begun to process things other than the extremely enticing mental picture of riding Loki right there in the passenger seat. “Wait, if it’s been months, why didn’t you make a move on me?” Tony demands, pulling away slightly and giving Loki an indignant look.

Loki leans forward to close the minute distance Tony created, his teeth visible behind his grin. “If we chalk it up to a tragic series of miscommunications, how quickly can we skip to the part where we go back to your place and fuck, do you think?”

“I have tinted windows, you know,” Tony answers, though he is turning the ignition and putting the car in gear as he does so.

“As interesting as I find your exhibitionist streak, Anthony, if you think I’m not going to take the opportunity to throw you around in that enormous bed of yours, you are hugely mistaken.”

“What’s the mystery about my bed? You’ve slept in it almost as much as I have,” Tony says, pulling out into traffic. It’s true, they have spent many nights snoring haphazardly all over each other. Nights they could have been fucking! Tony hits the accelerator with a little more force.

“True, though I don’t have any intention to sleep any time soon.”

The next 20 minutes are the longest of Tony’s life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's actually a whole roster of Marvel ladies on the derby team. I could probably write a whole other fic just about the derby team. I am absolutely not going to write fic about the fictitious Marvel lady roller derby team Fish and I created. We most certainly did not give Darcy the derby name AnaTazeYa, and by no means did we give Sif the derby name Vallkillrye. NOPE.
> 
> So this is what I have written so far! I am working on the final chapter. In which there is sex. I promise :P


	6. Tell Me What Else You Knew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony finally stops getting cockblocked.

Tony spends the rest of the drive home flicking his attention between the speedometer, checking the mirrors for speed cameras or cops, and watching as Loki squirms slightly in his seat. Tony thinks he will just have to have sex in the elevator because he can’t possibly wait twelve floors to get Loki in to bed.

Somehow they do manage to make it out of the elevator though, and Loki saunters into Tony’s apartment, laying his jacket carefully over the back of an armchair, tracing his fingers across its length with his back to Tony, all earlier squirminess forgotten. He looks completely at ease, and Tony is abruptly reminded of the first time he saw Loki. _80% lust and 20% loathing_ , he thinks. _Yeah. That sounds about right_.

“You want a drink?” he asks, heading to the kitchen and turning his back so he can try and compose himself.

“No.”

The voice comes from right beside his ear, a hot puff of breath causing a shiver Tony tries desperately to subdue. Loki’s hands are at Tony’s sides, his thumbs rubbing up and down in a gentle arc through Tony’s hoodie, as his fingers slide underneath the fabric to touch the skin underneath. Tony can feel the other man’s smile against his cheek, and he wants to open his eyes but then another breath hits his neck, and a warm, wet sensation tells him that Loki has his mouth on Tony’s ear.

Tony’s mouth falls open and he groans out loud as he feels Loki apply teeth. “I fucking knew you’d be a biter,” he manages to gasp out, turning towards the sound of Loki’s laughter.

“What else did you know, Anthony?” Loki is unzipping his hoodie and Tony is sliding his hands into Loki’s back pockets, bringing their bodies closer together, Loki’s body a line of warmth pressed up against his own. Loki moves his mouth down Tony’s neck, pressing teasing kisses into his skin.

“Lots of things,” Tony rasps. Loki is licking and sucking at a point just under Tony’s jawline, and his hands are palming Tony’s sides under his shirt, his fingers digging into Tony gently. “I’m kind of a genius, you know?”

Loki snorts and pulls back to look at him, his eyes dark and blown wide. Tony grins and lurches forward to kiss him again, sliding his tongue into the heat of Loki’s mouth. Loki throws Tony’s hoodie off his shoulders and pulls at Tony’s shirt. “If you’re such a genius, why weren’t we doing this sooner?”

They break apart briefly and strip their shirts off, both tossing them aside before Tony presses against Loki, grabbing his ass and walking them towards the...couch? _It’s closer, but there’s also this wall right here, and that one, and the rug, but also bed_! He growls into Loki’s mouth rather than answer, and heads towards his bedroom.

Loki is pliant and moans appreciatively, apparently fine with Tony ignoring the question and being walked steadily backwards while grabbing at Tony and thrusting their hips together instead. Once they reach Tony’s room Loki presses him down onto the bed and straddles him, placing one hand on the fly of Tony’s jeans. Tony moans and thrusts up into his hand but Loki smirks and doesn’t move, just raising an eyebrow.

Tony huffs and keens into Loki’s hand again. “Seriously? You want to have feelings time right now? Feelings are boring, kissing is awesome,” he says, getting up on his elbows and shoving his hands into Loki’s back pockets to squeeze his ass. 

Loki grinds down on Tony, bringing their dicks together and rubbing against him and Tony grunts appreciatively. “Also other things that I can do with my mouth are awesome, but if you don’t get your goddamn pants off I’m going to kill you before I get a chance to show you,” he says, punctuating it with another grope of Loki’s ass.

Loki grins and in a quick, smooth gesture pulls Tony’s fly open and shoves his jeans down to his thighs. Tony squirms underneath Loki and twists to shuck them off completely. Loki slumps down beside him and begins to wriggle out of his own, and Tony watches appreciatively before kneeling in between Loki’s legs and dragging his hands up them, not doing much to help the de-pantsing. Loki’s laugh is cut off as Tony begins to press gentle kisses into his inner thighs and breathe hot puffs of air over his dick.

Tony hears Loki swallow a few times before he breaths “You’re very cleverly avoiding my question, Anthony”.

Tony grins into Loki’s left thigh and tilts his head to look up at Loki, his hair askew and splayed on Tony’s headboard, thin but toned arms gripping the sheets. “I told you I was a genius. Now shush, and let me blow you.”

Tony hears what he thinks is probably the beginnings of a protest get cut off in a kind of strangled moan as he licks at Loki, and he grins around the other man’s cock, wrapping a hand around the base and generously coating the tip in saliva. He takes the head into his mouth and sucks, before coming back off with an obscene popping sound.

“You could tell me some of the things you know,” he purrs, mouthing at Loki’s cock.

“I knew you wouldn’t shut up for five seconds, even with my dick in your mouth,” Loki barks, but the harshness of his words is counterbalanced by him sliding his fingers from the base of Tony’s hairline up until his hair, his nails digging gently into Tony’s scalp.

Tony growls in pleasure and Loki’s hand asserts no extra pressure but follows Tony as he bends to swallow Loki again. Loki gasps and Tony; confident that he’s gonna get his two favourite things while he blows someone: head-holding and dirty talk; gets to work. He moves steadily, using his hand to match the pace where he can’t reach with his mouth.

Loki grunts and thrusts up into Tony’s mouth and Tony moans around his dick in response, feeling Loki tense at the rumbling sensation. “I knew I wanted to do this from the moment I first saw you in class. Maybe even right there, in the hall? You’d suck me off with a whole class watching, wouldn’t you?”

Loki’s filthy tone makes Tony groan again and he hastily reaches down to get a hand on himself. He’s achingly hard, and Loki practically purring above him, his hand on Tony’s head, his hips thrusting up into Tony’s mouth, the feeling of being overwhelmed by him, his scent and size and noises meaning he isn’t going to last much longer. Loki is probably right there with him, but his voice is reasonably composed, though low and breathy as he continues. “I knew you’d be good at it, too. You’ve got the perfect little dick-sucking mouth, you know?”

Tony gasps and comes in his hand, and his strangled groan must signal what happened because Loki throws his head back and thrusts into his mouth and comes, clutching at Tony’s hair with one hand and the sheets with the other. Tony swallows and slides off slowly, feeling as Loki shudders at the feeling on over-sensitive flesh and the sudden gust of cold air on his exposed cock. Tony grins and wipes at his mouth with a fist and watches as Loki tries to get his breathing under control.

“You’re fucking pornographic, d’you know that?” he says, kicking at the remnants of their clothing and sliding up to lie beside Loki. “Seriously. You oughta come with a warning or some shit.” He presses a sloppy kiss to the side of Loki’s neck and Loki chases it, plunging his tongue into Tony’s mouth and moaning at the taste of his come still left there. They break apart and Loki wraps a leg over Tony and pulls him down into the bed, their bodies pressed closely together. Tony adjusts a pillow and slides an arm under Loki, preparing to sleep the sleep of the sexually satisfied.

“Oh, and I don’t have an answer, by the way.” Loki makes a questioning hum and Tony continues, “to your question, about why we weren’t doing this already? But don’t worry. Any time you feel the need to ask it, I’ll just do that again, to make it up to you. Deal?”

Loki just snuggles closer to Tony and mumbles what sounds like “deal” in a sleepy voice. Tony smirks and closes his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 'feelings are boring' line comes from the awesome Dinosaur comics, and is available on a [shirt!](http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=QW-FEELINGS&Category_Code=QW)

**Author's Note:**

> And that's that! Thank you to everyone who read this, the reaction has been totally mind-blowing. If y'all enjoyed this ride aboard the S.S. Frostiron, I heartily recommend you check out this fic's spiritual successor/companion piece, [The Belle of Black & White I](http://archiveofourown.org/works/424121) by Fish, which is a Young Avengers art school AU set in the same universe, though it's some years down the track. And it's _awesome_.


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